


Polished

by mythras_fire



Series: The Only Constant is Change [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adorable Steve Rogers, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempt at Humor, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Past Rape/Non-con, Protective Bucky Barnes, Rape Aftermath, Recovered Memories, Soft Stucky Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 03:28:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17236514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythras_fire/pseuds/mythras_fire
Summary: Bucky grinned. Score one for him. Making Steve laugh was one of Bucky's reasons for living – fuck – the main reason these days. Making him laugh and keeping him safe. He'd scored one in the former, now it was time to go into stealth mode to score one in the latter. Someone had hurt Steve while Bucky was away on a mission and well, they'd just signed their own death warrant, whether they knew it or not. He didn't know any particulars yet, but he would be damned again if he wasn't going to find out."I promised your ma that I would look after you and I've done a piss-poor fucking job of it so far, so you better believe I aim to make up for all those lost years."(Sequel to Refashioned)





	Polished

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sara/gifts).



> This prequel-inside-a-sequel is the result of me pondering the question posed by Sara, who was curious to know what Steve and Bruce talked about while Tony was unconscious; Sara, this is for you ^^.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own any of these awesome characters or derive anything other than catharsis from writing about them and sharing their adventures with others. All pop-culture references belong to their respective creators.

~*~

-Eight nights after “the incident”-

TONY

Tony Stark was a dead man walking.

Everyone in the room had turned to face the elevator when the doors slid open on a whisper. The Winter Soldier quickly and efficiently scanned the faces of everyone present, his body still tensed for action. When it appeared that he had recognized them all and deemed them not to be a threat- for now- he stood more upright and turned his steely gaze toward the kitchen bar. Tony’s gut took a nosedive.

Shit. This was it. He was toast. Well, he did have the bracelets on but he’d have to make it past Barton out to the balcony for the suit to reach him in time. Maybe he could use good ol’ Legolas as a human shield just long enough to give him a few extra seconds for his escape attempt…

In the midst of running through the probabilities of a worst-case scenario survival, which at this point were looking slim to none, Tony’s genius brain noticed that Barnes wasn’t actually looking at him.

He was staring at Steve, who was seated across from Tony on the other side of the bar.

And it was definitely Barnes, not the Winter Soldier, peeking out through the curtain of dark brown hair that he had kept long. You tend to learn how to read minuscule changes in a person’s face when you’re surrounded by deadly super-spy poker faces day and night.

He was looking cautiously at Steve like he couldn’t believe his luck that not only had he made it home alive but that Steve still seemed to be in one piece, too. Must have had some close calls during that undercover mission of his.

Tony supposed that made sense. They’d already lost each other once 70 years ago. It must be really goddamn hard for them to be apart for very long these days. Let alone two months.

"Buck."

Names have power. It was quiet enough to hear that proverbial pin drop, so that when Steve uttered, in a slightly breathless voice, that single syllable, it permeated the air around them with much more force than you would expect from such a short utterance.

Tony couldn’t see Steve’s face from where he was standing but he could hazard a guess that it had a similar look to Barnes’ glassy-eyed stare, whose eyebrows rose towards each other minutely, his eyes softening a tinge in reply to Steve’s call.

Kind of a nice reunion moment, actually.

Or, well, it was until that sonofabitch Barton ruined it by opening his big fat mouth.

“So, I guess Stark didn’t invite you to the orgy either, huh?”

Tony’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. Seriously!! What was wrong with this guy?!? Who did he think he was, the Chandler Bing of superheroes??

Barnes reluctantly pulled his gaze away from Steve and the Winter Soldier glared in the stupidass archer’s direction.

Tony could swear the temperature in the room fell several degrees in that moment. Or maybe it was just him breaking out into a cold sweat.

At least that look wasn’t directed at Tony.

Yet.

He had to give the guy props though cuz it usually took several tries and/or someone manhandling Barton to get him to shut the hell up when he was really on a roll being a dick but Barnes got it in one with the kind of death glare that was probably the last thing his targets ever saw. Chilling that.

Tony had to suppress the childish urge to gloat at the way the Alpha wolf in the room made Barton tuck his tail and shrink away from the palpable waves of ire rolling in from the doorway.

Natasha broke the uneasy silence in the inimitable way that only a woman wise beyond her years seemed to command. “ _Он в порядке, это не так плохо, как ты думаешь, брат._ ”

[He's fine, it's not as bad as you think, brother.]

From his vantage point, Tony couldn't see if Natasha had returned to polishing her knives, but frankly - not gonna lie - he was scared to move for fear of attracting the Winter Soldier’s attention. Or Barnes’ for that matter. In point of fact, everyone else seemed to be sort of transfixed as well, but most likely for different reasons than his own. Lucky bastards.

Damn, he really needed to brush up on his Russian if Robocop here was gonna be sticking around, because just like that, whatever she had said to Barnes had a calming effect on him as Tony watched the hardened war veteran retreat underneath the beleaguered best friend's countenance. That change in body language must have signaled the all-clear to Rogers because he slowly rose from his stool in that moment and gently excused himself from the room. Fuck, for all he knew, Steve was fluent in Russian, too; that super soldier serum was probably great for learning languages.

Barnes waited for him to enter the elevator, began backing into the elevator like he didn’t trust anyone even if he did recognize all of them, and as he did so, gave Natasha a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it head nod, like maybe in acknowledgment or something. Maybe appreciation? Tony gave a mental shrug. With his luck lately it'd be something like, “Wait here, I'll be right back after I make sure Steve really is okay, and then you and I can beat the stuffing out of Stark, Red Room style…”

The elevator doors closed with a hush, and just like that, the room temperature seemed to return to normal, Tony’s nervous system gave an involuntary shudder that raced down his spine and into his toes, and he let out the breath he definitely had been aware he was holding in a quiet _whoosh_.

He was still alive. Ten points to Gryffindor. ‘Hah, screw Gryffindor,’ Tony mentally scoffed. ‘I’m a total Ravenclaw,’ he argued with his inner geek before his sense of self-preservation butted in to ruin his fun, much like a certain captain he knew, ‘but that’s beside the point here, Stark, get a grip! Damage control. Now. Go.’

What Tony really wanted to do was have a catfight with Barton over his boneheaded comment a few minutes ago but he knew he needed to go down to the workshop to ~~hide behind blast-proof doors~~ check on the bots before the Winter Soldier came looking for him, so he settled for sneering at the archer instead as he went back to his original task of serving himself some angel hair pasta. He’d lost his appetite for the moment but he was sure it’d come back later and he sure as hell wasn’t gonna just meander through the halls right now. Nopes. Not so much. He just hoped the marinara stains would come out in the wash cuz he loved this shirt. 

~*~

BUCKY

 _Swish_ The elevator doors slid open to admit the Winter Soldier and a stoic off-duty Captain America. _Swish_ The elevator doors slid shut and Bucky Barnes suddenly had a chest-full of Steve Rogers hugging the very breath out of Bucky's lungs. 

He patted Steve's back with his flesh hand and smiled fondly into his hair at his best friend's knee-jerk reaction to their reunion. "Yeah, I missed you, too, Stevie." He rubbed Steve's scalp with his metal hand in a light massage that he'd discovered recently which did a good job soothing Steve's oft-frazzled nerve. Being everyone's Golden Boy took a ton of effort and only Bucky got to see Steve in all his glorious imperfection – that same scrawny little punk he'd known and loved since they were kids. Only difference now was that all of that inner fierceness, piss, and vinegar could be seen on the outside in the form of a physique that could stop traffic; and sometimes did, much to Steve's embarrassed horror and Bucky's cackling delight. 

And muscles that were currently giving Bucky a live demonstration of what being squeezed by a boa constrictor must feel like. 

_Ding!_

He patted Steve's head a couple of times and wheezed out, "Ok, leggo, ya big palooka. We're on your floor." The muscles twitched but otherwise refused to disengage. Bucky just sighed. Old habits required old tactics.

"So, I guess I'll just have to carry you inside since you're obviously too weak to do it yourself," he said casually, his flesh hand absently drawing patterns over the soft fabric of Steve's dark blue Henley. 

And, just like clockwork, the threat to Steve's dignity had him popping up like a Jack-in-the-Box, his eyes suspiciously bright, his chin tilted up in that notoriously ~~adorable~~ childish way he had when he thought Bucky was treating him like a wimp. 

"I can do it. I ain't sickly no more," he broke out his best Brooklyn accent as he pulled apart from Bucky but not away, grabbing his metal hand and stubbornly yanking on it as he crossed the hallway to his front door. 

Bucky tried to hide a giant smirk at the fact that Steve was Steve was Steve, and failed. Okay, that's a lie. He pasted that big fat smirk on his face and just let himself be dragged into Steve's rooms. Once a punk, always a punk. "Oh yeah? Then what's with the vise-grip hug in the elevator?"

Steve avoided his gaze by going to the refrigerator for a jug of orange juice. He pulled down two tumblers and filled both before coming over to the couch where Bucky had taken up one of the plush corners. 

"I'm fine," he mumbled stubbornly, all but shoving Bucky's tumbler into his hand – glass clinking softly against metal – and yet somehow still managing not to spill one drop, before ensconcing himself at the other end, their feet tangling together.

"Uh-huh, sure. You may sound fine, but I know you, pal, and you sure don't look fine," Bucky shot back just as stubbornly. They could do this all day, and had done; Bucky remembered times back before the war when Steve was all bluster and indignation in the face of the many cards that were stacked up against him. It had broken Bucky's heart back then and he woulda traded his health and strong bones to see Steve stand up to all the bullies Brooklyn could throw at them if he coulda. Seems that Dr. Erskine fella did him a favor by providing Steve with an external source of strength and virility. And even more stubbornness to match, he thought with a wry smile.

A fine pink flush was beginning to spread up Steve's neck. "I'm fine, I tell ya. Take off your boots, you're gonna track mud everywhere." He knocked one of his ankles against one of Bucky's. The king of deflection, was Steve.

Bucky just stared at him over the rim of his orange juice glass. Steve stared back over his own glass. Bucky raised him an eyebrow. Steve's eye started to twitch, at which point he frowned and bent forward to remove his own shoes. See, he was a champion arguer until you got right up in his face; that's when whatever was gnawing at him would wriggle its way to the surface and his resolve to hold out would begin crumbling because he was the most earnest person Bucky had ever known in his ridiculously long life. Steve never could let an injustice go by the wayside unmentioned or – heaven forfend – unavenged. He let out a puff of a laugh. No wonder Steve was the mantelpiece of this ragtag group of misfits: clearly, he had found his people. 

"Yes, Ma," Bucky snarked back in his whiniest voice before unlacing his boots (which coincidentally happened to be sparklingly free of this supposed mud) with his free hand and toeing them off to bounce haphazardly against the edge of the coffee table and the skirt of the sofa.

"Don't you drag my ma into this, she'd've made you take your boots off at the door; better yet, she wouldn't've let you into the house in the first place in such a muddy state."

"Oh yeah? Well... you're a muddy state."

That brilliant comeback caught Steve off guard in the middle of his stubborn sulk and he let loose a sudden burst of laughter; eyes crinkled; mouth agape; head thrown back.

Bucky grinned. Score one for him. Making Steve laugh was one of Bucky's reasons for living – fuck – the main reason these days. Making him laugh and keeping him safe. He'd scored one in the former, now it was time to go into stealth mode to score one in the latter. Someone had hurt Steve while Bucky was away on a mission and well, they'd just signed their own death warrant, whether they knew it or not. He didn't know any particulars yet, but he would be damned again if he wasn't going to find out. 

"I promised your ma that I would look after you and I've done a piss-poor fucking job of it so far, so you better believe I aim to make up for all those lost years."

That sobering declaration wiped the mirth right off Steve's face like a towel does with sweat, but Bucky was determined now. He would see those blue eyes sparkle again soon enough. Whatever it took.

Steve lowered his head slowly, mechanically, the way a Ferris wheel slowly rotates down, down, towards the ground, his eyes drooping to contemplate the half-full glass of orange juice in his grip. His voice suddenly sounded like a wind-up toy running out of cord. "Maybe if I'd been able to stretch just a little bit farther, if I'd been just a little bit stronger, I coulda..." he glanced up at Bucky through his eyelashes before looking back down morosely at his glass, clutching it with both hands as if to demonstrate to himself how he'd have held on tighter. 

"Whoa, hold your horses there, pal," Bucky skooched forward on the couch, knees bending to either side, his torso leaning forward so he could grip Steve's shoulder in a soothing gesture meant to pull him out of his flashback. "You didn't do anything wrong. I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for you," he chucked his right hand under Steve's chin. "Hey, look at me." The eyes that met his gaze looked so forlorn, a 70-year-old heap of suppressed guilt that he wore like a carapace; and hid behind an impenetrable shield.

Bucky slid his hand up to cup Steve's warm cheek reassuringly. "You did nothing wrong," he repeated. "The only thing that matters is that we're here now. We can – and should – talk about this later," Bucky said in a soft voice, intent and earnest, trying to gauge the receptivity he saw in his best friend's cerulean eyes. He stroked Steve's cheek lightly with his thumb. Steve blinked once, then dipped his head slightly, releasing a sigh that deflated him just a little bit. 

Bucky reoriented himself in a comfortable sitting position, leaning his right side against the back of the sofa, and they rearranged themselves into more of a tangled square of limbs draped over each other. Both of them could use some physical comfort it seemed. He used his considerable training to stay focused on the mission at hand, but it burned him up inside to see Steve punishing himself over that no good, godforsaken, sack of shit Zo – NO. Deep breath, Barnes! Deep breath. That's it...

"Why is everyone always telling me I did nothing wrong?" Steve groused under his breath.

"What?"

Steve shook his head and made a dismissive gesture with his free hand, not meeting Bucky's eyes. "Nothing, forget it."

Bucky took another swig of his orange juice, enjoying the tangy sweetness of it. Similar to the contagion of yawning, Steve mimicked his movement. "Okay then, tell me what happened while I was out." 

"Huh? You mean you don't know?" Steve lifted his head and cocked it ever so slightly to the side. Bucky had no idea why he thought so, but there was something... distracting in that subtle movement that always made him lose his train of thought; even before his brain had gotten scrambled, he was pretty sure that for some strange reason whenever Steve did that, he would get lost in the arch of Steve's neck, and whatever he was planning to say would just kind of – "...judging from the icy reception in the common room just now." Bucky realized that Steve had been talking this whole time and he strained to catch up. "Hmm? Oh yeah, that," he smirked. "That was mostly me having fun busting Stark's balls," Bucky winked conspiratorially. "It's so easy," he shrugged.

Steve smiled at that. "Yeah, it is, huh? He just really gets on my nerve sometimes, y'know?"

Bucky nodded. "Speaking of annoying, what was that crack from Barton about an orgy?" Steve's face clouded over and his whole head drooped; the skin all the way up to his ears turned a few different shades of red. Interesting, thought Bucky. Steve didn't usually play the shrinking violet around him when they were alone. He squeezed one of Steve's calves lightly.

"Stevie?" he asked, aiming for a gentle teasing tone, "does that word still mean what it used to mean?" At least that question earned him a quiet snort from Steve. 

"How did you find out then?" he deflected some more. "Barton saw you approaching the Tower and said that you already looked locked and loaded and ready to send someone down to live with the fishes."

"Been watching that AMC channel again that we discovered the other day, have we?" Bucky teased. Steve's eyes crinkled slightly as he shrugged, "Maybe."

"Fury. Went to deliver my report, get it out of the way so I could just come home to you and unwind." Bucky tossed back the dregs of his orange juice and pushed aside some of Steve's ubiquitous sketchbooks to set his glass on the coffee table, gripping Steve's calf for support as he cantilevered his body towards the coffee table and back. 

"But..."

"But when I asked how everyone was, and by 'everyone' he knew I meant you, he hesitated."

Steve tilted his head again and Bucky had to look down at his casual grip of Steve's calf to keep his focus; he continued speaking, addressing Steve's knee this time. "In our line of work, he who hesitates is dead. Forget lost."

Bucky heard a quiet but sharp intake of breath across the short distance. He glanced up through his bangs to see a startled look in Steve's azure eyes. 

"Did you think...?"

"No," Bucky rushed to answer, squeezing Steve's calf comfortingly, rubbing little circles with his thumb. "Well, maybe, maybe not – but one look at Fury's face and I knew that something had happened and I sure as fuck wasn't gonna wait around to hear it from him."

Steve bent forward suddenly and leaned over first to Bucky's left side and then to his right, his glass of orange juice forgotten in his lap, trying to peel him away from the couch and scanning Bucky's torso with his eyes and questing hands.

"What the fuck, Rogers?" Bucky exclaimed with a laugh as he flinched, trying to keep Steve's roving hands from accidentally landing on his ticklish spots. 

"One of your daggers is missing," Steve answered as if they'd been playing 'Find the Difference' between pre- and post-mission Bucky.

The former assassin grinned sheepishly and began picking absently on the seam of the former soldier's jeans. "Oh, that."

Steve's Eyebrow of Doom rose to demand explication. "You never leave your daggers behind."

"I'll go back and get it, sheesh."

"And your report?"

Bucky ran a hand through his hair and belatedly realized it was the metal one, which always managed to snag on a knot or tangle in his wild and untamed mane. "I may have _yank_ left it _tug_ pinned to the – ow! – wall."

He heard snickering from the other side of his elbow. "Little help, here?" Bucky asked with only a hint of exasperation in his voice. He'd twisted his head trying to pull his hand out of his hair so he was unprepared for the sudden envelopment of his senses in the sight, sound, smell, and touch of Steve.

~*~

Bucky was still recovering lost memories of his life before the War and they tended to resurface in reaction to stimuli that matched up with the memory in question: the crinkle sound of newspaper being wadded up reminded him of when he used to save the daily Times paper left behind by businessmen in diners for Steve to use in his too-thin shoes; the alluring scent of a dame's perfume reminded him of when he would come home from a date and Steve would put away his sketchbook, get one whiff of Bucky, then march him directly over to the kitchen sink and make him rinse his neck and hair cuz he said the stink of it gave him a sinus headache. Bucky noticed sometime later, however, that his cologne never seemed to bother Steve; in fact, it seemed to help alleviate some of his asthma symptoms, Bucky thought, because Steve would appear to be on the cusp of an attack but sometimes, if Bucky had just applied some cologne (cheap as it ever was), he'd walk over to try to help Steve calm down and focus on his breathing and Steve would in fact settle down. A few times he'd even told Bucky he smelled good, although Bucky had always just emerged from the bath so he'd always figured Steve meant clean when he said good. 

Here on the couch in Steve's rooms in the Tower, the cocoon of his presence reminded Bucky of the cold winters in their tiny hole-in-the-wall apartment on Flatbush Avenue in Red Hook: most of the time Bucky would be the one to scavenge all the blankets they could pile on top of Steve's bed, stoke the fire under the stove in the kitchen area, and tunnel their way inside to keep warm. Every so often, though, Steve would be the one to shove Bucky into their blanket fort first, see to everything, and then crawl in after him, thus enveloping Bucky in the sight, sound, smell, and touch of him; the most calming sensation Bucky could remember.

Bucky closed his eyes and took a deep breath, hoping to make a new memory out of this moment to accompany the one that had just resurfaced. Sometimes, his grip on old memories was tenuous at best and more than a few of them had slipped away from him again in the beginning. After the Fall; Hydra's fall, his liberation. But lately, with Steve's help – although the punk-ass kid always deflected any credit for Bucky's recovery, insisting, "It's all you, Buck, I just work here," – Bucky was getting better at holding onto resurfaced memories by essentially trying to breathe them back in. 

The lowered timbre of Steve's voice less than a foot from Bucky's face was what brought him back into the present future. "... does still mean what it used to, but that's not what happened to us."

Bucky opened his eyes to find Steve curled up in front of him, the left side of his head leaning against the back of the sofa, knees pulled up under his chin, legs still tangled with Bucky's. Still a little foggy, Bucky lifted his left hand to rub the sore spot on his scalp, only to see Steve smile and reach out with his cat-like reflexes to halt Bucky's movement. "No, Buck, I just got it untangled. It's fine." He then rubbed the sore spot for him before pulling his hand down into their joint lap. Bucky's brain had finished cataloging this new memory so he settled down further into the couch, mirroring Steve's position.

"Wait, what? Us?"

Steve smiled fondly, eyes hopeful. "Welcome back. Was it a happy one this time?" 

Bucky sighed a little and smiled back. "Yeah. Tell you about it later." He attempted to put his game face on. "But you first, pal. And no more lollygagging!" he punctuated his declaration by poking an index finger into his best friend's sternum.

"Yes, sir, Sgt. Barnes, sir!"

Bucky rolled his eyes at Steve being Steve and scooted a little further up the couch so he didn't feel like he was about to fall off. In doing so, one of his feet bumped into something smooth and hard. He looked down in between their legs to see Steve's glass of orange juice placidly ensconced between Steve's thighs. "Orange juice is gonna get warm," he casually remarked as he finished getting comfortable. 

"What? Oh, yeah, orange juice," Steve glanced down like he'd forgotten it was there, lifted the glass and downed the rest of it in one big gulp, then leaned over to deposit it on the coffee table, causing Bucky to lean with him, entangled as they were. "I was about to go out for a run, and had just reached the curb out in front of the Tower when a cab drove by and all of a sudden this huge fan of puddle water shot up and sprayed me right in the face, and all down my front," Steve recounted with a hint of annoyance in his tone. Bucky giggled. "The last thing I remember thinking, aside from how glad I was that my mouth had _not_ been open at the time, was that the order of things was a little backwards and that I was supposed to get dirty and wet during my run, not before it –" 

"But then you thought nothing at all," Bucky finished for him, "and woke up somewhere else."

Steve's eyes widened in surprise agreement. "Yes! How did you –"

Bucky heaved a sigh and squeezed Steve's hand in commiseration where it was entwined around his metal digits. "Because that happened to me countless times during my time with... them," he said softly. "It was how they could control me when I was out in the field."

Steve said nothing, his face frozen in horrified shock. 

"Short-range only, but far enough away to be safely hidden from me and whichever government they were infiltrating."

"Some sort of radio frequency, you think?"

Bucky shrugged, his eyes un-focusing a little in thought, "Coulda been. For all I know, they managed to create some sort of signal switch thing with the off-brand serum they gave me," he frowned, "but that wouldn't explain how they got you cuz you got the good stuff." 

Bucky shifted his gaze from his contemplation of Steve's collarbone to his cobalt eyes and gave him a wan smile. "And then what happened?" He nudged his friend, encouraging him to proceed, which Steve did, but Bucky could tell he was bursting with questions, concern writ large on his face for Bucky's well-being, and ire smoldering beneath the surface towards his captors and handlers. They hadn't really talked about... that time yet. Bucky just hadn't been ready. Bruce, who knew a thing or two about having an actual monster in your head, had been a great help to Bucky, understanding his circumstance in a way no one else could, and offering support and tension-relieving activities. Bucky found he really liked yoga, and dragged Steve upstairs for some rooftop yoga whenever the weather was nice. He was finally starting to feel like he could talk about it a little bit, but first he had to be there for Steve.

"I woke up somewhere dark and drafty," Steve's skin flushed pink once more and he broke eye-contact, "and um, with no clothes on."

Bucky's eyes grew wide. "You were naked? The fuck?" 

Steve nodded. "And so was Bruce. And Stark."

It was Bucky's turn to be left speechless. Steve ran his free hand through his hair, making some of it stick up funny. "That's what Barton was referring to when they found us."

"Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle." Steve still looked a little shifty-eyed, having trouble maintaining eye-contact; this subtle evasiveness made Bucky suspect there were things Steve was glossing over but since Bucky was one big ole pot, who was he to call Steve's kettle black?

"Did any evil henchmen come in to taunt you and explain how their cunning plan to take over the world was going to go off without a hitch now that they had you clapped in irons?" Bucky modulated his tone into one of strategic comic relief, treading the thin line between patronizing and good-natured ribbing. He made sure to smile conspiratorially at Steve while he spoke: to help convey his intent and to judge its reception. Steve's eye twitched a little bit at the end there which led Bucky to believe he'd unintentionally come close to the mark. It figured. The three of them would hardly have needed rescuing if they'd been free to move about in... wherever it was they'd been taken.

"Ha, ha, no. In fact, it was all very mysterious, what with the platform and pressure plates and mil– um," Steve stuttered, turning red again, "–uh, machines and... stuff –" 

"Pressure plates?"

"– it was really weird actually, and no one ever showed up, to gloat or anything else." Steve looked back up at Bucky, shifting his legs a bit as they started going to sleep on him. "Yeah, there were these pressure plates under our feet, on this platform a foot or two off the floor," he said in response to Bucky's question and curious head tilt of his own. 

"Every time Bruce or I tried to lean to one side or attempted to leave the platform, a strange beeping sound would start up."

"Oh shit," Bucky blurted out, eyes wide.

"No kidding."

"Did the beeping sound increase the more you leaned over?"

Steve nodded. "And decreased when we returned to our original standing positions."

"How'd you keep Stark from blowing you guys up? I'd think –"

Steve suddenly choked on his own air and Bucky had to smack his back a few times to help with his coughing fit. "Sorry," he wheezed. "Air went down _cough_ the wrong pipe."

"It's okay, man. I gotcha," Bucky rubbed Steve's back a few more times before he disentangled himself from their little ball 'o limbs, got up, and headed over to the sink with their orange juice glasses. He rinsed them out and returned with water for both of them; Steve eagerly accepted his and drank half of it like he'd just come back from a big run, tightly gripping the glass that look dwarfed inside his big, strong hands.

Bucky tapped his friend on the thigh to get him to move one of his legs he'd been stretching and sat back down on the sofa, squeezing himself back into their little bubble of space; he wrapped Steve's legs around his hip bones since they seemed to need stretching out. He sipped at his water instead, the gears turning in his head. A trend was starting to appear, he was almost sure of it. A pattern to Steve's behavior since Bucky came home. 

"He was uh –" more blushing, "he was out cold for most of it," sip, "so it was mostly just me trying to keep Bruce calm so that the other guy wouldn't wake up."

"Oh, yeah! Poor Bruce, that musta been hard for him," Bucky commented, genuine in his concern for his newest friend, but also paying closer attention now to the minute facial expressions and body language of Steve's reactions to Bucky's choice of words. And sure enough, Steve's eye twitched again and he fidgeted with his water glass, sloshing the liquid around a bit. 

" _cough_ Yeah, I thought it best to keep him distracted while we thought up an escape plan."

"Good idea. How'd you do that?"

Steve surprised Bucky by looking up at him with a total shit-eating grin on his face before calmly asking, "How much money does a pirate pay for corn?"

Bucky's jaw dropped.

"A buccaneer," Steve answered his own riddle, looking terribly proud of himself.

"You didn't."

"I did."

Bucky threw his head back and laughed harder than he had in months.

"You mean to tell me," he tried to ask in between hiccups, "that you _hiccup_ told Bruce corny jokes _hiccup_ to keep the other guy from waking _hiccup_ up?"

"Yep," Steve's mega-watt King of the Dorks smile was still firmly in place. "Knock-knock."

Bucky's hiccups were replaced by groaning noises. "Ugh. Who's there?" He couldn't deny Steve anything, even if he did have the worst taste in jokes EVER.

"Broken pencil."

"Broken pencil who?"

"Nevermind. It's pointless."

Bucky let his head fall forward onto his bent knees, muttering to himself. "How am I even friends with you?"

The giant goober was too fond of his beloved puns and corny jokes to be offended, so he just snickered and replied, "Yeah, that was Bruce's reaction, too. I had to change tack pretty quickly after that because his face was taking on a slight greenish tint," Steve admitted a bit sheepishly, "which was what I was trying to avoid so I decided to go with a classic."

"Oh, thank god," Bucky lifted his head and sighed melodramatically, smirking at Steve when he frowned. 

"You two obviously don't have as refined a taste for good humor as me."

"Obviously," Bucky deadpanned.

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."

Bucky's eyes lit up in recognition. "Now that's more like it!"

Steve preened. "Either this man is dead, or my watch has stopped."

Bucky laughed out loud, this time at Steve's bang-on impression of some of Groucho Marx's best lines, rather than at Steve.

"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know."

"I love that one! Ooh, ooh, do one from _Monkey Business_!"

"Don't you know what vessel is?"

Bucky chimed in with Chico's line right on cue, "Sure, I can vessel..." and started whistling; until, that is, he looked back at Steve, lips still pursed, and began to laugh, transforming the whistle into more of a guffaw. "Did that work?" he asked when he caught his breath.

"Yeah, good thing Bruce appreciates classic Vaudeville cuz I woulda run out of material otherwise."

Bucky agreed, "Mmhmm, I bet. How long were you able to keep it up? I mean, I'm sure you could do it all day but we only ever got to see a couple of Marx Bros. films at the pictures so I'd assume you'd have capped out – no pun intended –" Bucky winked, "at around five minutes or so."

There went that blush again. "You look a little flushed, Stevie," Bucky asked, palming Steve's shoulder with his metal hand. "Are you hot? Want me to ask JARVIS to turn on the air conditioning?"

 _"The air temperature in this room is 72°F, Sergeant Barnes. Would you like it to be cooler, Captain Rogers?"_ JARVIS supplied helpfully.

"What? Oh, no, um, thanks, JARVIS, I'll just um," he looked down, his hands randomly gesturing at his torso, "I'll just remove this outer shirt and my uh, socks." Steve's eyes had lost a bit of their focus and he had answered JARVIS on autopilot.

That must be what I look like when a new memory is resurfacing, Bucky mused. Okay, so the pattern definitely had something to do with Steve's state of undress while captive: innuendo made him uncomfortable and they'd been chained to some kind of pressure-sensitive ticking device; Stark was present but down for the count; and Bucky presumed the pressure-bomb-thing had not had a chance to detonate.

"So, how'd you guys escape?" he asked as his friend pulled his shirt over his head. Steve stopped moving mid-pull, his hands frozen halfway over his head, face hidden behind the folds of his blue Henley. 

"Uhhh..." came the elegant reply. Bucky's eyebrow quirked in amusement at this new bashful side to Steve. At least, he thought it was new. Something golden caught his eye just then and he glanced down at a swath of silky-smooth skin that had just become visible as Steve pulled his shirt up over his head. The sight of that midriff triggered a new memory in Bucky's mind. More of an instinctual memory than that of a singular event, and a sudden urge to take action, which Bucky didn't fight, figuring that if it felt natural then it must have been a part of his former life. 

Quick as a whip, he parted his knees, leaned forward, and blew a big ole raspberry on Steve's exposed, muscled, stomach. The resulting high-pitched squealing sound filled in the rest of the sense memory: the sound of Steve squeaking like a mouse; the sight of him trying to squirm out of Bucky's expert grip; the feel of his smooth skin as Bucky reeled him back in, laughing all the while; the taste of his lips as Steve made him pay for his insolence in the best possible way inside their blanket fort, blissfully warm and safe.

Bucky's head shot up like he'd received an electric shock, heart pounding like mad in his chest.

W.

T.

F.

Steve's knee-jerk reaction to Bucky's raspberry attack was to fall over backwards onto the couch laughing in an attempt to escape, but he didn't get very far seeing as how his legs were still wrapped around Bucky's waist. So, he managed to yank his shirt off the rest of the way and came up swingin'.

"Fuck you, Barnes!" he retorted, but his grin kinda just slid off his face when he saw Bucky's expression: it was ashen.

He started to reach out to clasp one of Bucky's arms, "You okay, Bu–"

"Have we?" Bucky interrupted him.

"Have we what?"

"Fucked."

Steve's arm dropped mid-air. Now they had matching ashen-faced expressions. Bucky felt the bottom of his stomach drop out.

"N-n-no, we haven't," Steve stuttered a little but thankfully didn't break eye-contact. Bucky's heart stopped trying to pound its way out of his rib cage quite so much. He wasn't sure he could take it if they had and he couldn't remember it. Surely, that would be a horrible thing to have to tell somebody. 

Steve was watching him very closely but saying nothing. Probably waiting for me to bolt, Bucky thought grimly, which made his stubborn side kick into high gear – he was sick and tired of running, especially from him. If Steve could stick it out, so could he, dammit. Agh! Wrong time for dirty puns, Barnes!

His eyebrows creased in slight consternation. He touched his own lips lightly with the index and middle fingers of his flesh hand and looked down at Steve's lips as he spoke. "But we've kissed."

The smile that snuck back onto Steve's face was cautious but warm; fond; eyes full of memories. "Yes, many times," he responded softly, his gaze roving over their present configuration. Bucky could tell he was remembering the layout of the memory he'd just recovered. "All that's missing are –"

"A bunch of blankets," Bucky filled in to show he remembered.

Steve's smile widened into a hopeful grin, " – to make our blanket fort complete."

Bucky needed more intel. "How long did we...?"

Steve's grin dissipated a little, his eyes taking on a wistful gleam. "Not very long. About a week before Pearl Harbor, and then only sporadically after that," he recounted as he removed his socks, tossing them under the coffee table. "You were pretty engrossed in the draft and all that."

Bucky winced. "And after you found me in Italy?"

Steve's smile morphed into a rather smug-looking smirk. "Let's just say you were very impressed with my _ahem_ improvements," he said with a cheesy wag of his eyebrows.

Bucky finally smiled. This felt right, more natural. His Steve wasn't a shrinking violet. His Steve was a dirty rotten scoundrel. His Steve. His.

Well, they'd always been in each other's pockets ever since they were kids, but friendships change as you get older, don't they, and sometimes they gradually become something more. Everything. What was that line Steve was always telling him he used to say? With the way his memories were starting to resurface more frequently the closer he got to Steve, the more time they spent alone together just hanging out, Bucky figured it wouldn't be long until he could remember it on his own, but until then...

Bucky appropriated his own smirk. "Was I? Musta been some improvement. I feel like I'd have high standards."

Steve laughed again. Bucky calmed down some more. 

"Oh, you were definitely the high maintenance one in the relationship," Steve replied with an air of quiet authority, trying to get Bucky to fall for his angelic act again. 

"Yeah, right, buster. I wasn't born yesterday. I seem to recall you bossing me around with your mouth and then hogging all the blankets to boot!" Bucky retorted as more bits and pieces flashed across his mind's eye of the events Steve had just mentioned.

Steve had the grace to duck his head at that statement, although he was still doing his best "I'm too innocent to be accused of anything" impression.

"You wouldn't think someone that small could take up that much space," Bucky added.

"Hah, you and me both. I swear I walked around the first few weeks with a perpetual bruise on my forehead, shoulders, and shins from running into things I'd always been too small to worry about before."

"Oh dayum, that's right!" Bucky covered his mouth with one hand and tried not to snicker too much. "I bet you had to be careful with the dames, not to squeeze 'em too hard when you were romancin' 'em."

"Um, it wasn't really like that, Buck."

"Oh. Ohhh... you sly dog, you!" Bucky winked saucily at Steve before patting him on the back. 

"No, not like that either! Ugh, jerk," Steve tried to sound annoyed, but his reaction told a different story. Now he just looked uncomfortable again. 

Bucky was confused. "What's going on here, sweetheart? What am I missing?"

Steve's eyes bulged at the word "sweetheart" and so did Bucky's a moment later when he heard the echo in his head of what he'd just said. 

Steve's voice came out a little raspy. "That's what you used to call me," his eyes taking on a far-away look, "right before I fell asleep when I was sick, or just had the stuffing beaten outta me," he snorted a little at that one, "and on the night before you shipped out, at the Stark Expo."

Steve refocused his eyes to gaze at Bucky with a mix of hope and fear. Hope that Bucky was remembering their life together, and fear, Bucky supposed, that he might not return those old feelings.

Bucky was still confused, but more curious than apprehensive at this point. Clearly, they'd had some sort of relationship growing when the damn war exploded on the scene and all hell broke loose. "Well, I sound positively lovely, don't I?" Bucky couldn't help teasing. That felt right, too; more and more he was starting to get these instinctual urges to say certain things and act a certain way that he was sure came from his old self, if the positive reactions he got from Steve were anything to go by.

Steve chuckled but also rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Buck," he replied, tongue-in-cheek, "you were a real peach."

Bucky smiled the most charming smile he could remember how to muster... until something occurred to him that had been kinda glossed over in the helter-skelter pace of this little confessional on the couch they seemed to have formed in the last hour or so. His smile turned upside down.

"Okay, so riddle me this, Batman," Bucky asked, and promptly reached out to keep Steve from tilting his head in that maddeningly cute fashion. "Stay!" And when Steve just smiled complacently and did as he was bid, Bucky finally knew why and for how long he'd been falling prey to that move.

Leaving his hands gently clasping either side of Steve's head, Bucky inquired, "If I was so lovely, and you were so– so– you, then why didn't we..." and suddenly Bucky was the one who felt uncomfortable. How strange. "Was it because I entered the draft? Left you alone back in Brooklyn? Why didn't you take advantage of all this?" Bucky referenced Steve's striking new physique with a quick perusal of his eyes, "to finally get lucky with all the dames who wouldn't give you the time of day the week before?" 

The dam had broken and Bucky now understood why people beat around the bush while they tried to work up the courage to pose the one question they were so afraid to ask. "Why did you let me beat you to a pulp on that helicarrier? Why didn't you just tell me you were magicked away into someone's fucked-up idea of a threesome in that place you woke up in? Why didn't you- why... didn't... you–" Bucky's bullet-train of thought suddenly and spectacularly jumped the guard rails over a magnificent mental ravine as he watched the simple motion of Steve maintaining eye-contact while simultaneously turning his head just enough to place a kiss – the lightest of touches – to Bucky's metal hand. His eyes were the calm blue of a sky on a lazy summer's afternoon. Bucky's stormy grey eyes were stunned into stillness.

"They weren't you."

Those three little words, spoken with easy conviction and quiet authority, caused Bucky's heart to start pounding once more; his stomach did a somersault; his goddamn toes were tingling.

Bucky's eyes were wide with shock, glued to the place where Steve had marked his hand with his lips. He was also pretty sure he had a stunned codfish expression going on, judging from the small sweet smile on Steve's face. Oh, he was enjoying this alright.

"But –" Crap. Bucky's brain was stuck. Crap. Crap. Crap.

For a second, Bucky thought Steve was going to come to his rescue and say something not so earth-shattering, but oh no, the little punk had other plans. Their eyes locked together when Steve pivoted his head back towards Bucky, who started to feel relieved, until he noticed that Steve's head continued turning towards Bucky's other hand, the flesh one – the one with all the nerve endings – and Bucky's feeling of relief basically jumped up and ran screaming for the hills. 

The kiss Steve bestowed upon Bucky's skin felt almost more foreign than the one he'd semi-perceived through his metal hand. 

"Oh." That was all Bucky had left. He was feeling kinda emotionally raw at this point: everything tingled, his body was suffused by a warm glow, like being wrapped up in your favorite childhood security blanket. In that moment, he realized that Steve was his security blanket. He hadn't felt this calm, this secure since he had asked Steve a lifetime ago if ziplining onto a speeding train high in the Alps was revenge for Bucky making him ride the Cyclone at Coney Island. 

"You love me."

Bucky started at those three little words, wondering who'd uttered them as he hadn't seen Steve's lips move. When he saw Steve's eyes crinkle with emotion and his face light up like the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center, Bucky realized those words had come from his own lips. 

His hands slid down to grasp Steve's shoulders for support as more memories began flashing across his mind's eye, like a film reel that's been sped up – the sound is lost, the images are choppy and squirrelly, scenes changing too fast for full comprehension.

Scenes of their life on Flatbush Ave, boot camp, saying goodbye at the Stark Expo, getting captured, getting rescued, Steve bigger, stronger, even more stubborn (so, definitely still his Steve), Agent Carter flirting with Steve, the Howling Commandos, Stark the elder – WAIT! Just a damn minute. Back it up!

Bucky's eyes refocused on a still-grinning Steve, obviously used to waiting out Bucky's moments of recollection by now. "Agent Carter," Bucky blurted out before he could lose the name to go with the flashback. Steve's grin cracked. Bucky narrowed his gaze in thought. "That night at the bar. She looked at me like I was some two-bit chump. I felt like I'd been socked right in the kisser. But she looked at you like you'd already won the war single-handedly."

Steve's smile became wistful once more, but he didn't break eye-contact. "She was the only other person who saw me for me, that little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight, even after I became Captain America."

Bucky's emotions looked like a Jackson Pollack painting: they were splattered everywhere; no rhyme or reason as to why one moment he was happier than he could ever remember being knowing that Steve had loved Bucky more than anyone else, and the next moment, he was ready to roll his eyes in exasperation after learning that Steve hadn't amassed a string of paramours once he became a national icon.

"So... you and her, did you, I mean..." Bucky was starting to get really annoyed with himself; he didn't remember being this tongue-tied in his memories. Wasn't he supposed to be the suave and debonair one?

Steve groaned low in his throat and let his head fall forward until their foreheads were touching, and closed his eyes. "We had a date planned," came the soft reply. "To go dancing. Or rather, for her to teach me how to dance."

Bucky chuckled. "Yeah, you always did seem to have two left feet the few times I ever saw you dance." He felt as much as heard Steve sigh in agreement.

"But then I boarded that plane to stop Schmidt and –"

"Okay, but why not before then?" Bucky frowned at himself. Why was he hounding Steve about this? Why should he want to know if Steve had fucked some military dame during the war? What was wrong with him? "Sorry, Stevie," he added before the other man could reply, "I don't know why I'm pestering you about this, it's just –"

"No, Buck, it's fine. Don't worry about it. It's just, well, Peggy wasn't just a dame. She was a lady. Tough as nails, mark my words, but a real lady. She respected me when I was still just a pipsqueak and that meant more to me than any of the compliments and adulation I received after I became more... noticeable."

Steve's voice trailed off at the end there and Bucky surmised that, however comfortable Captain America always appeared to be with all of the attention he inevitably attracted, Steve Rogers was still privately coming to terms with being desirable, even if only superficially, for the first time in his life. Which made sense when Bucky thought about it. Steve literally went from a wallflower to the main attraction in one day. That kind of transformation was not something anyone could just "get used to" overnight, or even a fortnight.

~*~

In the ensuing silence, the first shoe dropped. The puzzle that Bucky's overwrought brain had been working feverishly on ever since they'd sat down tonight to discuss what had happened to Steve recently, what with all of the memories that had started pouring in and the stories he'd started telling him about their life together up until they were separated, was starting to take shape. The overprotective side of his mind, Bucky realized. That's what was driving him to find out if Steve had found someone else in his absence to be happy with. Because that had always been Bucky's ultimate goal: for Steve to be happy.

"But if you didn't... get lucky with Agent Carter," Bucky now felt suddenly, paradoxically awkward about using crass terms to refer to the idea of Steve and sex and he had no idea why, "and you said we didn't either, then..."

In lieu of a reply, Steve surged up and forward, getting to his knees to envelop Bucky in a bear hug that knocked him backward onto the couch cushions, his head just shy of hitting the arm rest. He mumbled something into Bucky's collarbone as they finished rearranging themselves so that they were lying mostly side by side, cuddled together, cuz Steve was a damn sight heavier than he used to be and Bucky could think better when oxygen was readily available to his brain. "What was that, sweetheart?" His metal hand stroked through his fella's hair. 

Steve attempted to clear his throat, but it sounded like a frog had just taken up residence there and refused to budge. "It's not like I didn't want to. I did."

"'Course you did," Bucky cooed.

Steve sniffled into Bucky's jacket. "But now I'll never get that chance."

And that's when the other shoe dropped. Steve wasn't talking about his missed opportunity with Carter. That chance was scuttled seventy-plus years ago, along with Steve himself.

Holy crap. He was referring to his chance with Bucky.

"Oh shit. You mean, you and –"

"Yeah, I'm so sorry, Buck."

"Shhh, it's okay, sweetheart," Bucky continued stroking his left hand through Steve's hair, the rhythmic movement doing as much to soothe him as he hoped it was doing for his best friend. "I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere, well, that is until I go on my next mission but y'know, I'll always come back to you when I'm done, come hell or high water," he rambled. The muffled snickering sound and light shaking of the body pressed alongside his told him Steve wasn't too distraught if he could be amused by Bucky's rambling.

"Punk," he teased, ruffling Steve's hair every which way so it stood up like the best bed-head ever. Suddenly, he was hit by the desire to see that happen naturally: to wake up in the morning and be greeted by the sight of Steve asleep next to him. Bucky smiled to himself and ducked his head reflexively to place a kiss on top of Steve's head. Maybe he would.

He decided to test the waters by pretending to be jealous. "So, who do I need to go knock around a bit for stealing my fella's first time, eh? Was it Stark? I bet it was Stark the smarmy bastard." Yeah, totally pretending.

Steve's head shot up off of Bucky's shoulder in alarm, panic in his eyes, until he saw the smirk on Bucky's face, that long-forgotten twinkle of mischief in his eyes. Steve made a harrumphing sound. "Hmm, I see you've remembered just how much of a jerk you are. How wonderful," he deadpanned as he laid his head back down, shifting to rest more of his torso on top of Bucky's chest, snaking his right arm around Bucky's ribs. The boa constrictor was back, Bucky mused, ready and waiting to squeeze the life out of him.

Death by cuddling. He should be so lucky.

"Yeah, well, this jerk is a highly-trained ninja assassin, so you just tell me who hurt you and I'll... take care of them," Bucky finished with a growl. He was getting angrier the more he thought about it.

The cuddly boa constricted a little tighter around him for a moment in a snake hug. "Shhh, I would, Buck, trust me, I would love to tell you. But we still don't know who it was."

"Yet." There was a steely determination in Bucky's voice that made Steve almost feel sorry for whoever the dumb fuck was who kidnapped them after Bucky was done with them. Almost. Oh, and then there's how the Hulk would feel. Bucky'll have to find him first if he wants there to be anything left to "take care of". Steve shivered at the thought. "'Sides, Stark didn't fuck me. He was the one in the middle of the superhero sandwich." There was more shifting of limbs; the boa was settling in, gathering its coils around itself.

Bucky's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Was he now?"

"Yeah," came the quiet reply, almost interrupted by a yawn. "Bruce and I were the end pieces."

Bucky could feel Steve's heartbeat slowing down, hear his breath becoming more rhythmic, his tensed-up muscles relaxing. His fella was falling asleep right there in his arms. He must be so exhausted, poor baby, thought Bucky. Another surge of emotions came bursting forth to splatter a new Pollock-esque painting across Bucky's mind: sheer unadulterated joy at recovering so many memories tonight; bone-deep love at discovering that Steve had indeed found someone to be happy with and that that someone was him!; anxiety about the future – he didn't want to fuck this up; simmering rage that was beginning to heat up the more he heard about what had happened to his fella and their friends; and concern for any PTSD their ordeal might have caused them.

Bucky was so lost in these roiling emotions and the thoughts they engendered, that he almost didn't hear Steve mumbling on his way to visit the Sandman. 

"That's why I had to make Bruce laugh cuz every time he looked down he saw Stark's head'n he couldn' geddit off."

Well, at least now he knew which end Steve had been stuck to. This thought was followed by a non-sequitur query as to whether Steve was a drooler, what with his face snuggled into the folds of Bucky's jacket and all. He wondered what kind of ridiculous pattern was going to be pressed into Steve's cheek and forehead when he woke up. The corner of Bucky's mouth twitched and he couldn't wait to find out. 

"But then Stark woke up'n we hadda keep him still but it was really hard cuz he never listens to me." 

Even half-asleep, Steve still managed to sound put-upon when talking about their illustrious teammate. Bucky stifled a laugh so as not to jostle Steve's head resting on his chest. "Yeah, that sounds like Stark alright," he concurred.

"Didn' want him to move Buck I swear _yawn_ no moving no friction didn' wanna hurt him," Steve yawned again even as he tried to keep talking, "but he said later I didn't it was fine and what's a little bondage between friends," Steve huffed, his warm breath tickling the exposed skin where Bucky's collarbone met his throat, "He thinks he's funny but he's really not."

Bucky smiled as he pressed another kiss into Steve's hair. "No, Stevie, no he isn't."

A few minutes passed by with no new asides from the golden-haired wonder under his chin, so Bucky figured he'd finally fallen asleep for some much-needed rest and was about to do the same when he was proven wrong.

"Buck?"

"Yeah, sweetheart?" That was Bucky's new favorite word and it brought a sappy smile to his face every time he said it.

"'m sorry m'first time couldn' be with you _sigh_ waited for you don' care if that makes me a lovestruck teenage girl – wanted to be with you just you – but I couldn'... tried to get it outta my head in m'sketchbook... didn' really work though." Steve drew in a deep breath and let it out in a big huff of air, an audible sign of his disappointment and frustration.

Bucky's eyes were as round as saucers. He glanced over at the pile of sketchbooks on the coffee table, then cleared his throat, which seemed to have taken in Steve's frog when he fell asleep. "You're stuck with me now, pal. You can have as many first times as you want."

"That doesn' make any sense," Steve mumble-retorted.

"You don't make any sense," Bucky shot back, his eyes alight with childlike glee.

"You're mean I don' love you anymore." 

Somewhere in his dreams, Bucky was absolutely sure that Steve was pouting with his arms crossed over his chest in a defensive stance, his chin jutting out defiantly. 

"Too late! No takebacks," he crowed. OMG, sleep-arguing Steve was the most precious thing Bucky had ever seen in his life!

"Knock-knock."

Bucky's grin promptly crumpled into a grimace. Really?!? He mentally smacked a hand to his forehead.

"Who's there?"

Seriously, why did he love a man who could tell fucking knock-knock jokes in his sleep??

"Cynthia."

And why did he keep enabling the little punk by playing along?! 

"Cynthia who?"

He closed his eyes in lieu of rolling them since Steve wasn't awake to get the full effect.

"Cynthia been away I missed you."

Oh, Bucky's heart said as it melted. That's why.

~*~

The End ♥ 

**Author's Note:**

> A note on Clint in this series: Just for the record, I love and admire Clint, really I do, but I needed someone to be kind of a dickish character in this fic and Clint picked the short straw, as it were. *shrugs* I thought he did a good job, it's a fine line to walk after all and who better to walk the tightrope than an ex-circus super spy ninja archer? ;)


End file.
